On this day 30 years ago, Samuel Doe led a military coup in Liberia. Doe and his men broke into the president’s house and murdered him. Over the next few weeks they staged mass executions of members of the deposed government. Troubled economic conditions and political unrest formed the pretext for the coup, but as usually happens with coups, economic conditions became far worse after the coup.
Following a very familiar pattern for African dictators, Samuel Doe began to place people from his own tribe, the Krahns, in key positions, and to eliminate people who challenged his authority. Doe’s government became increasingly corrupt. Freedom of the press was gradually curtailed. Elections were staged in 1985, and Doe rigged the vote counting, declaring himself the elected president with 51% of the vote.
Coups are normally followed by more coups, and, after several unsuccessful coup attempts had been made, Charles Taylor began a guerrilla war against Doe at the end of 1989. A number of warlords battled for control of the country, and in September 1990 a warlord named Prince Johnson captured Doe and made a videotape of Samuel Doe being tortured to death. Civil war between the warlords continued for many years after that, and the country is now struggling to recover.